The art of faking it

What service workers can learn from the "happiest place on earth"

"Service with a smile" is a crucial tenet of every service industry job. Even if it means you have to fake it.

Photograph by: Tyler Olson
, Fotolia.com

It's the season of tantrums, tears and behaviour befitting zoo animals - and we're not talking about kids being back in school.

Holiday shopping will soon be in swing, and Canadian retailers are preparing for its horrors by working on their best fake smiles. Unfortunately, research shows service employees tend to zap so much energy feigning happiness that it burns them out.

A new workplace study, however, offers frontline workers a guiding light in Disney - ironically, a company where the cheerfulness imperative is so strong as to be written into its theme park tagline: "Happiest place on earth."

Although park employees didn't prove immune to exhaustion caused by faking it (referred to as surface acting), researchers identified two coping mechanisms that dramatically cushioned the blow: first, the perception of being well-suited to the job, and second, having engaged leaders who valued feedback and provided adequate resources to deal with workplace demands.

University of Central Florida professor Jonathan Matusitz, who co-authored the study with Disney alumna Anne Reyers, says the result is that the company's frontline attrition rate is four to five times lower than the rest of the hospitality industry.

"It's a role model for success," says Matusitz, whose study appears in the Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health.

An American Express Canada survey released Tuesday reveals that a third of Canadians believe businesses are paying less attention to customer service - a significant increase from 2011, when only a quarter of people felt that way.

At the same time, however, shoppers are getting shorter with frontline staff, with one in three having lost their temper and 12 per cent resorting to profanity.

Bill Capodagli, an internationally noted Disney management expert, says the takeaway for companies - particularly over the imminent holiday season - is that they not only need to hire the right people, but alsoÊmake sure those people feel taken care of.

"Employees are Disney's No. 1 priority. They realize that if a cast member doesn't enjoy their job or respect the company, they won't be able to provide long-term, world-class customer service," says Capodagli, co-author of The Disney Way.

"When people feel respected and trusted, they'll rise to levels that will surprise even themselves."

Walt Disney World Organizational psychologist Alicia Grandey says the challenge faced by the service industry is that consumers desire authenticity but, paradoxically, only when it's related to happy outcomes.

"We want people to be real, but only if they're really positive," says Grandey, an associate professor at Pennsylvania State University. "So we do kind of want people to fake it if they're feeling negative. It's part of what we think we're getting for our money as customers."

Matusitz and Reyers' study is consistent with Grandey's own research, to the extent that it highlights the importance of organizationally matched employees. By not just training people to put on a smile but rather training them to believe in the company way, she says the resulting sense of autonomy reduces emotional labour.

That is, to the Disney employee, the appearance of happiness feels more like a personal choice than a directive.

"You want to show this child the magic that they came for," says Grandey. "You don't want to show them that Ariel is pissed off."

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